Although England is known as the birthplace of soccer, its national team has won only one major championship, the 1966 World Cup it hosted. And thus expectations are low for Gareth Southgate, promoted from interim to permanent head coach on Wednesday.

Fans everywhere know the names and years of the teams: Torino 1949, Manchester United 1958, Alianza Lima 1987 and Zambia national team 1993. On Monday night came the horrible news of another plane crash involving Brazil's Chapecoense.

The success of a national youth team isn't just judged by wins and losses but by the players who move on to the next level. The 2015 U.S. U-17 World Cup team was a failure on the field -- 21st out of 24 teams at the world championship in Chile -- but it has already produced nine players (out of 21) who have made their first-team professional debuts. Josh Perez made history on Monday night when he became at the age of 18 the youngest American to play in Italy's Serie A.

During his playing career Jurgen Klinsmann scored more than 200 goals for various clubs and 47 for Germany. As USA coach, conceding a few crucial goals paved the way for his exit.

Regardless of what Jurgen Klinsmann may have gotten right or wrong during his nearly five and a half years at the USA's helm, his tenure was remarkably long relative to national team coaches around the world.

Ten days after saying he expected Jurgen Klinsmann would be the USA's head coach through the Hexagonal, like every previous national team coach, Sunil Gulati fired him. What changed? In a conference call with the media on Tuesday with new national team coach Bruce Arena, Gulati said, "None of us expected the two results we got."

Jurgen Klinsmann is out as U.S. men's national team coach and technical director. The decision came less than a week after the USA lost to Costa Rica, 4-0, and fell into last place in its World Cup 2018 qualifying group. The decision was not surprising, given how the USA performed in the two qualifiers, for a coach who has been a cat with nine lives for a while.

The amazing growth of the Chinese economy has enabled it to outspend the United States for yet another commodity: Premier League TV rights.

Bob Bradley took over as Swansea City manager at the start of one international break and a second international break ends with the Swans still looking for their first win under their American manager. He downplayed the talk of a team in "crisis" after South Korea midfielder Ki Sung-Yeung was quoted as saying just that.

Of all the U.S. defeats during the Jurgen Klinsmann era -- which now spans more than five years -- none has produced near-unanimous reaction like after Tuesday's 4-0 loss to Costa Rica: Time is up on the men's national team coach.

Hoffenheim, one of only three undefeated teams in the Bundesliga, is coached by Julian Nagelsmann, who is the same age as his team's leading scorer. He took the helm in February at age 28 with Hoffenheim in second-to-last place.

Recently, I watched the Europa League game between Fenerbahce and Manchester United on TV. It was an exciting and interesting game. The game ended 2-1 for Fenerbahce. Someone who did not watch the game might have thought that it was a close game. No! Fenerbahce could have won the game, 4-1, if Emmanuel Emenike was less selfish and had a good finishing touch. One would then think that Fenerbahce dominated the game. Well, it depends on your definition of "domination," Did Fenerbahce "park a bus in front of the penalty area" as some people say? We cannot say that after …

U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati said the results of Tuesday's election won't change his organization's approach to a 2026 World Cup bid. U.S. Soccer will work with the Trump administration, but Gulati admitted there remained lots of unanswered questions: who will be in Trump administration but most important, what are the terms of the 2026 World Cup bid process, which won't be determined until January 2017.

For more than two decades, standing areas have not been permitted in Premier League stadiums, but they may be on the way back.

The Hexagonal -- the final round of World Cup 2018 qualifying -- begins Friday with three games: USA-Mexico, Honduras-Panama and Trinidad & Tobago-Costa Rica. The top three teams advance to the finals and the fourth-place team faces Asia's fifth-place team. Here's how we rank the six teams based on their performances the last two years.